@Flanker: I think it was a slapped-together name that someone realized sounded really damn awesome. The realization that the big strategic bombers made for scary, scary, scary tactical interdiction platforms. After the Arc Lights standardized it, using them that way has been a standard feature: the Sovs used Backfires over Afghanistan in the same way.

Aluminum Christmas Trees, that's how code names are chosen. A list is drawn up and the names are selected. Until some 2 or 3 star general says "Screw it, it's called this!" That's why the operation to get Saddam was called "Red Dawn". and "Operation Linebacker" was given it's name by football fan Nixon.

Which is why the Second Gulf War in the Nineties was called "Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm" by the big boys in the playground - the Americans, and we in Britain called it "Operation Granby". Granby? To this day I do not know who or what the fuck Granby was, and think the Americans called it right.

BTW, that Felix Baumgartner is doing that jump today, if weather is right at Roswell.

Says you. I personally prefer the British approach of low-key, nondescript names: Corporate, Banner, Granby, Telic. That may be simply an ingrained eye-rolling reaction at some of the fancier operation names that the US gives. (Just Cause? What was wrong with Blue Spoon?)

Wusnae jist me, Sabre. My unit at the time had a lot of guys and gals doing the eye-rolling thing whenever the unit's head shed were talking about "Op Granby" on our regular briefings on the war. Most of us were saying "Desert Storm".

The last decent British operational names were "Overlord" and "Bodyguard".

Right; Churchill put in an order in WWII that operation names and codenames in general should never give away any information by themselves. This was after R.V. Jones' cell of merry pranksters managed to figure out almost the entirety of the German electronic order of battle by correlating electronic codenames with their mythological counterparts (Heimdall the single-beam system being named after Heimdall the one-eyed god, for instance). No frivolous names so that no widow would have to be informed that her husband died in Operation Bunnyhop or Operation Ballyhoo, but randomly-selected ones.

The last airworthy Vulcan bomber will fly for the final time next year, the trust which funds the aircraft has confirmed. The XH 558 has been based at South Yorkshire's Robin Hood Airport since March 2011 after the RAF Lyneham base closure was announced.

It has been decided that "challenging modifications" to both wings would not be sustainable to the old aircraft. The Vulcan to the Sky Trust said it decided not to fund the repairs.

Trust chief executive Dr Robert Pleming told supporters: "At the end of next year, she will need a £200,000 modification to her wings to increase her flying life. "We know that you would do your upmost to fund this work, but for a number of reasons we have decided not to ask you to take this risk."

In May, Doncaster Robin Hood Airport was forced to close temporarily after the Vulcan bomber aborted take-off due to an engine fault. The trust's engineering director Andrew Edmondson added: "There is no possibility of rectification if an error is made. We are not saying we cannot do it, just that it is risky so other factors must be taken into account." Mr Edmondson added: "From the start of the 2014 season, it is unlikely that we could accommodate any engine failures. There are no more airworthy engines available, and refurbishment would be so difficult and costly that there is no possibility that it will happen."

Vulcan to the Sky Trust, which has kept the bomber in the skies for six years, said it needed in excess of £1m to carry out repairs and maintenance in coming months. The Vulcan XH558 took its first flight on 25 May 1960 and was originally built to carry nuclear weapons but was only ever used as a nuclear deterrent. The bomber retired from service in 1993 and is the only [airworthy] one left of the 134 that were built for the Royal Air Force.

It happens. If you want to see WWII-era aircraft, now is the time people. The parts and the skillset will go away. I'm glad my daddy took me to see the CAF and I got to see Fi Fi in the sky. Would've loved to have seen that Vulcan fly. T_T

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